Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Three Azerbaijani activists residing in Tabriz — Sajjad Afroozian, Ebrahim Ranjbar, and Sadollah Sasani — were arrested by security agents Friday, October 26th for participating in a memorial service for Gholamreza Amani. A fourth, Hakimeh Ahmadi, was arrested for undisclosed reasons in Marand.

Gholamreza Amani was a renowned Azerbaijani activist who died in a car accident along with his two brothers on October 23, 2008. Amid public suspicions around the circumstances of his death — believed by some to be a “premeditated murder” — security forces have kept an anxious eye and grip on the gatherings held in his memory.

A close source said security forces surrounded Maralan cemetery on Thursday, where Amani’s commemoration was scheduled to take place. Afroozian was among a number of activists contacted by security agents that day who threatened to detain them if they showed up.

Two of the arrested memorial attendees have been pursued by authorities in the past. Sasani was among a group of Azerbaijani activists arrested and interrogated in July 2017 during a gathering at Babak Fort. He was later released on a bail of 20 million tomans (approximately $5,000 USD). In one of his multiple run-ins with security agents and interrogators, Afroozian was violently apprehended in December 2016 in the city of Malekan and released the following February on a 50 million toman bond [approximately $12,000 USD].

Coinciding the three aforementioned arrests was the detainment of Hakimeh Ahmadi, arrested at her home in the city of Marand. Security agents reportedly roughhoused both her and husband, threatening them with a close-combat weapon. They offered no explanation for her arrest.

Ahmadi was previously arrested this past September and released on a 100 million toman bail [approximately $7,000 USD].

Afroozian, Ranjbar, Sasani, and Ahmadi have all been transferred to undisclosed locations.

Tabriz, Marand, and Malekan are located in the northeastern province of Azerbaijan, which borders the Republic of Azerbaijan and is home to Iran’s Azerbaijani minority.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Shahnaz Darabian’s plans to mark the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death at his resting place in Karaj’s Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery were abruptly derailed by a phone call October 24th, by which Iranian security forces informed her that the ceremony would not be permissible.

The widow and children of late writer Ali Ashraf Darvishian had announced their plans to commemorate his passing on October 23rd of this year.

“Security organs pled ‘anti-regime abuses’ to stop the event from taking place,” a close source told HRANA. “They have said that only family and close relatives of Mr. Darvishian are permitted to visit his grave for an hour. They left the family with no choice but to cancel the ceremony.”

The cancellation marks the third consecutive time that Iranian authorities have obstructed posthumous honors for Darvishian. Just two days after his death in 2017, Iranian authorities canceled a commemoration event planned for October 28th at Elmi Karbordi University. A second attempt to hold a ceremony was halted by security forces December 1, 2017.

Ali Ashraf Darvishian, a writer and scholar of folk literature, died of an illness on October 26, 2017, at the age of 76. He was buried October 30, 2017, in Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery of Karaj.

Ali Ashraf Darvishian

Darvishian published around 30 books, the most influential of which was a 19-volume anthology of Iranian folklore he composed in collaboration with Reza Khandan Mahabadi. One of the oldest members of the Iranian Writers Guild, his honors include the Human Rights Watch Hellman-Hammett Grant, awarded to writers across the world who are struggling against persecution and economic hardship.

Due to his political activity leading up to the Islamic Revolution, Darvishian was fired from his job, prevented from working, and imprisoned between 1970 and 1979.

Other notable Darvishian works include My Favorite Stories, Bisotun, Abshuran, Bread Season, Along with my Father’s Songs, Golden Flower and Red Klash, The Black Cloud of a Thousand Eyes, Our School’s Bulletin, Rangineh, When Will You Be Returning, Dear Brother, and Fire in the Kid’s Library.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – HRANA has confirmed the names of 133 Ahwazi Arabs swept up in an arrest campaign, a purported search for accomplices of an armed attack on a September 22nd military parade that left 24 dead and 57 wounded.

Held in the southwestern border city of Ahvaz in observance of the Iran-Iraq war, the parade was tragically interrupted by the gunfire of four assailants who were promptly killed by authorities. Having since attributed the tragedy to ISIS, the Iranian authorities recently launched a retaliatory missile attack on an ISIS base in Iraq. Security forces, seemingly in a continued state of urgency, have continued to sequester citizens across the Khuzestan province on grounds they have yet to disclose.

With no available information on how these would-be suspects could be linked to the armed attack or to ISIS, locals wonder if arrestees are being targeted for other reasons entirely. That detained hail mostly from the cities of Ahvaz, Khorramshahr, Susangerd, and Abadan; many have had prior run-ins with authorities, several on account of their civic activism; and almost all are Ahwazi Arabs, one of Iran’s ethnic minorities.

In response to allegations that they may be using the parade attack as a pretext for purging the region of civic activism, Iranian authorities seemed to hedge.

“There are no civil or children’s rights activists among those arrested,” said Khuzestan provincial governor Gholamreza Shariati on October 22nd, without making mention of arrest numbers. “We are making concerted efforts to avoid trouble for civil and political activists, and they have not been a subject of discussion. One woman is among those detained, but we have not detained any children.”

Local activists, meanwhile, feel that their comrades have inexplicably come under a scrutiny bordering on persecution. Human rights activist Karim Dahimi cited his colleague, Susangerd civil rights activist Lamiya Hamadi, as an example: “She is not, in fact, a religious activist,” Dahimi said. “Gholamreza Shariati admitting her arrest only corroborates the fact that civil rights activists are among those detained.”

Dahimi also scoffed at the governor’s claim that only one woman had thus far been detained, countering with examples of women who were carted off shortly after their family members: Faez Afrawi, who was detained shortly after her son, is now being held in an undisclosed location, and the wife, sister, and mother of detainee Adnan Mazraia, who are also being held incommunicado.

Regarding Shariati’s claims that no children had been arrested, Dahimi said, “it ought to be noted that the entire families of the four attackers were detained on the day of the attack, including their children.”

Save for a few insinuations that some detainees have been transferred to Tehran, arrestees’ inquiring family members have been suffering in radio silence from authorities. “No one has been released since the attacks began in Khuzestan,” said Dahimi. “What’s more, we don’t know where they’re being kept, or what kind of condition they’re being kept in.”

Not long after the attack, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence announced it had taken 22 suspects into custody, broadcasting footage of blindfolded, unidentified detainees facing a wall. Now local sources estimate the number of those arrested has climbed well into the hundreds.

While arrest numbers rise and authorities play tactics close to the vest, public fears return to the possibility that security forces will coerce past offenders to “confess” to a role in the attack. In response to mounting public concern over scapegoating and discrimination, the Defenders of Human Rights Center, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, issued the following statement on October 21st:

“[…]Although state organizations have yet to give a report on the number of detainees or the process of detention, according to the families of detainees, over 500 were arrested between September 23 and October 22 and are held in undisclosed locations. The detainees are deprived of the most basic legal rights, including the right to legal representation or the right to family visitation.

The Defenders of Human Rights Center condemns the recent arrests and any illegal action taken by the security officials and the IRGC. The Center announces that such blind arrests and security measures only result in further unrest and certainly cannot shut down the voice of the protestors. The only path to achieving peace inside Iran is through being responsive to citizens and delivering on delayed promises, as well as through combating administrative corruption, existing “red lines,” and releasing all prisoners of conscience and political prisoners.”

Listed below are the identities of the 133 arrestees thus far confirmed by HRANA:

Khaled Abidawi, of the Shekareh Kut-e Abdollah neighborhood

Abu Shalan Saki, of Hoveyzeh

Ahmad Bawi, of the Zahiriyeh neighborhood of Ahvaz

Ahmad Timas, of the Shekareh neighborhood of Ahvaz

Ahmad Hazbawi, of the Kut-e Abdollah neighborhood

Ahmad Hamari, 29, holder of a bachelor’s degree, married, of the Mandali neighborhood of Ahvaz

Ahmad Haidari, of the Mollashieh neighborhood of Ahvaz

Ahmad Sawidi, of the Hujjiyeh village of Susangerd

Ahmad Krushat, son of Kazim, of Ahvaz

Osama TImas, 26, of the Shekareh neighborhood of Ahvaz

Omid Bachari, of the Muwilhah neighborhood of Ahvaz

Amir Afrawi, son of Fazel, of Albuafri village of Susangerd

Jader Afrawi, of the Mollashieh neighborhood of Ahvaz

Jasim Krushat, 45, of the Alawi neighborhood of Ahvaz

Jafar Hazbawi, of the Kut Abdullah neighborhood of Ahvaz

Jafar Abidawi, of the Goldasht neighborhood of Ahvaz

Jamil Ahmadpour (al-Ha’i), of the Aziziyah neighborhood of Ahvaz

Jamil Haydari, 33, of the Northern Kamplou neighborhood of the Lashkar district of Ahvaz

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Retired teacher and current teacher’s union member Hashem Khastar, who has no history of mental illness, was arrested in front of his garden on the evening of Tuesday, October 23rd and dispatched by ambulance to Mashhad’s Ibn Sina Hospital Psychiatric Ward.

Khastar’s family were suspicious and worried, a close source said, when they came home Tuesday to find his car unlocked in front of the house. On a Wednesday phone call — his first contact with his family since the arrest — Khastar said that the Intelligence Unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had arrested and admitted him to the hospital for reasons they wouldn’t disclose.

According to the source, Khastar’s family were initially forbidden by security agents from visiting him in the ward but were more recently able to obtain that permission through coordination with authorities. Khastar — who declared hunger strike earlier today, October 25th, demanding to see his wife — explained during her visit the details of his arrest: “They brought some articles of my clothing into the ambulance, took me straight to the hospital, and put shackles on my feet.”

It is rumored that this puzzling detainment was ordered by the prosecutor’s office. As of the date of this report, no further information is available on the reasons behind Khastar’s arrest.

A recent arrest during silent teacher protests on June 21, 2018, landed Khastar, 65, in a Security Police detention center on Abbas Abad (formerly Vozara) street. In 2009, he was arrested in connection to widespread protests following that year’s Iranian presidential elections and was fined by Iranian courts for two letters he wrote from Vakilabad Prison. He was released, then arrested again later for refusing to pay the fine.

Mashhad is the capital of Razavi Khorasan province, located in Iran’s northeast.

Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – On October 6th, Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh of Tehran Revolutionary Court Branch 26 sentenced civil rights activist Leila Mir-Ghaffari to a two-year prison sentence, suspended over three years, for having pointed to a picture on the wall.

Mir-Ghaffari’s attorney Mohammad Hossein Aghasi explained to HRANA that her conviction of “insulting the supreme leader” hinged on a single moment: when she voiced criticism of foreign aid to Lebanon and Syria whilst pointing a “finger of blame” to a picture of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose image overlooks the entrance to almost every public building in Iran.

Mir-Ghaffari was initially detained on October 2nd for defending the “Girls of Revolution Street,” a movement that gained international attention through photographs of its defenders de-veiling in public places in protest of mandatory head coverings. Morality court ordered her to pay a fine of 32 million IRR [approximately $250 USD], and she was released on bail the next day.

On June 13, 2018, HRANA reported on a summons from the Tehran Appeals Court to review the sentencing of a number of civil activists, including Mir-Ghaffari, who had been issued 91 days’ imprisonment and 74 lashes each. Judge Farshid Dehghani presided over their preliminary trial on February 9, 2016, in Tehran Criminal Court No. 2, Branch 1060.

In November 2016, Mir-Ghaffari was arrested with 17 others for staging a peaceful gathering across from Evin Prison. Authorities sent the women protestors to Gharchak Prison and the men to Evin. Charged with “disrupting the public peace,” they were eventually released on bail of 500 million IRR [approximately $4000 USD]. Her co-arrestees were Reza Makeian (Malak), Hashem Zaynali, Simin Aivazadeh, Ehsan Khaybar, Abdulazim Arouji, Mohsen Haseli, Mohsen Shojaie, Azam Najafi, Parvin Soleymani, Sharmin Yamani, Sala Saie, Arshiya Rahmati, Massoud Hamidi, Ali Babaie, Esmaeil Hosseini, Farideh Tousi, and Zahra Moddareszadeh.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – In an act of protest, Reza Sigarchi, a Great Tehran Penitentiary prisoner of conscience and member of the * Gonabadi Dervish religious minority, announced Saturday, October 20th that he will be abstaining from both food and medicine.

Sigarchi’s strike is a demonstration of support for his fellow downtrodden Dervishes, according to Majzooban Noor, a website covering Dervish community news. He will reportedly not eat or ingest medicine until the following demands are met: lift the house arrest order on Dervish leader Noor Ali Tabandeh; release female Dervish prisoners; reunite separated Dervish prisoners into the same Ward; return Abbas Dehghan to Great Tehran Penitentiary.

Sigarchi, who suffers from heart disease, was hospitalized last week in Imam Khomeini Hospital where he underwent an angiography.

Five other Dervish prisoners in Great Tehran Penitentiary — Salehodin Moradi, Mojtaba Biranvand, Mohammad Reza Darvishi, Saeed Soltanpour, and Ali Mohammad Shahi — have been on hunger strike since a violent raid on their sit-in by prison guards on August 29th.

Hunger-striking Dervish Abbas Dehghan still hasn’t eaten since September 2nd. Dehghan reportedly spent one hour in Great Tehran Penitentiary post-trial before being transferred to Ward 2A of Evin Prison, under IRGC jurisdiction, where he has remained since.

All of the aforementioned prisoners were arrested amid the “Golestan Haftom” incident in February 2018, where Iranian police and plainclothes members of the IRGC’s Basij faction confronted hundreds of Gonabadi Dervishes who had rallied outside the home of their spiritual leader Noor Ali Tabandeh. The Dervish demonstrators sought to prevent the possible detainment of Tabandeh, who has reportedly been placed under extended house arrest by Iranian authorities.

Hundreds of Dervishes were beaten, wounded, and arrested during the Golestan Haftom incident. A similar attack occurred on January 24th after an intervention from security forces on the same street, heightening the sense of fear within the Dervish community.

Though Iranian judicial authorities estimate that around 300 people have been arrested in connection with Golestan Haftom, HRANA has thus far published the names of 324 arrestees and estimates that the actual number is considerably higher.

* There are various divisions among Dervishes in Iran. In this report, the term “Dervish” refers to Nematollahi Gonabadis, who declare themselves as followers of Twelver Shi’ism, Iran’s official state religion.

The Prosecutor’s Office settled on a charge of “disrupting the public peace through participation in an illegal gathering,” which according to HRANA reports incurred one year of imprisonment and 74 lashings per defendant in Arak Criminal Court No. 2, Branch 102, presided by Judge Mohammad Reza Abdollahi.

Their sentence allows for detention time already served to be counted towards their pending prison terms, a particular boon to Najafi, Bagheri, Safari, and Sadeghi who received two additional years of prison time for “publishing lies with intent to disrupt the public mind.” Bagheri’s prison term was further compounded by another six months for “insulting a police chief in cyberspace.”

Among the accused is attorney and human rights activist Mohammad Najafi, who said in a note, “Branch 1 of Markazi Province has upheld the initial verdict. The maximum punishment of three years in prison and 74 lashings […] remains unchanged for me and Messrs. Bagheri and Safari, while the sentences for the rest of those convicted, including my six clients, were suspended over five years.”

Discovery into these protestors’ case files began March 13, 2018, in Branch One of Arak Investigation Court, by which point all 11 had already been interrogated by the Intelligence Office. Ten of the eleven were present during discovery, where an investigator deliberated on charges from disrupting the peace to gathering and conspiring. Though all of the accused were detained amid the protest site in Shazand city where all of them are residents, authorities inexplicably forwarded their case to the judicial office of Arak. All denied the charges brought against them.

Independent of the January protests case file, Najafi, Bagheri, Safari, Ajilou, and Bakhshi all have individual cases pending in the Revolutionary Court of Arak.

After several delays due to the absence of a judge, Arak Criminal Court No. 2, Branch 102 tried Najafi June 9, 2018, in for his inquiries into the death of civilian Vahid Heydari, who passed away while in custody of Arak authorities amid the January protests. While Iranian judicial authorities had claimed Heydari was a drug dealer who committed suicide in Police Detention Center No. 12, Najafi’s field research concluded that Heydari was a peddler with no criminal record, whose autopsy report was suspicious for blunt-force trauma. When Najafi was arrested for his investigations, Tehran MP Mahmoud Sadeghi spoke out in his defense.

A large number of participants in recent protests, referred to as the January protests, were detained and interrogated across the country. The protests resulted in the death of 25 individuals and the detention of around five thousand. Ministry of the Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli previously stated that public demonstrations “turned violent” in 40 of the 100 cities where the January protests broke out.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Dozens of civil activists issued a statement October 18th advocating for due process in the case of political prisoner Payam Shakiba.

Held in Rajai Shahr Prison of Karaj since his arrest in February 2018, Shakiba was sentenced to 11 years in prison by Judge Ahmadzadeh. The sentence was later upheld in an appeals court.

Shakiba is a former member of the University of Zanjan’s Islamic Student Association, and prior to his persecution by authorities was a graduate student of political science at Allameh Tabatabai University.

The full text of the activists’ statement, translated into English by HRANA, is below:

Payam Shakiba, a former member of the Islamic Student Association at the University of Zanjan, was first arrested in July 2008 along with several other students protesting against the [sexual] assault of a female student by a university vice-president. All of the protesters were convicted. Payam was released on bail after 40 days and sentenced one year later to a year in prison.

Upon completion of his compulsory military service, he was hired as a teacher in September 2010 at a semi-private school in Tehran. In November of that year, he went to prison to serve his sentence. After his release, the Ministry of Education halted his employment proceedings.

Mr. Shakiba passed the entrance exam for master’s programs in applied science at both a public institution and Azad University. However, the public university barred him from enrolling in the program, given his status as a “starred” student [i.e. a student whose file is marked with an asterisk to indicate previous disciplinary action for political activity]. He had no choice but to enroll in the Sciences and Research Branch at Azad University. In the final days of his first semester, however, he was expelled and banned from returning to his studies.

Payam, however, didn’t stop there: he took the entrance exam again in 2013 and was accepted to the political science program at Allameh Tabatabai University. He had spent years in the meantime earning his living in industrial workshops.

Payam Shakiba was arrested for a second time on February 19, 2017, on charges of “acting against national security by assembling and colluding against the regime.” After a search of his workplace in the industrial park of Golgoun, in Shahriar, he was transferred to solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Intelligence. During this time he was denied access to a lawyer or visitation from family members. When his interrogation period had finished, he was illegally exiled to Rajai Shahr prison where he spent 17 months in legal limbo. It was then that he was faced with a judicial conundrum: first the appeals court informed one of his lawyers that Shakiba’s 11-year sentence had been reduced to six; a week later, another one of his lawyers was summoned to court, where he learned that the 11-year sentence had been upheld, and that the five-year reduction was no longer valid.

A glance at the processing of Mr. Shakiba’s cases, and at his sentence as it stands, reveals a flagrant injustice and lack of due process. What kind of judicial system takes employment opportunity away from a student and future teacher because they protested a sexual assault? In what kind of fair process can an interrogator rule in lieu of a judge to reverse an already-appealed sentence? Why are the basic minimums of amenities and living space withheld from Payam Shakiba and from other political prisoners? Why don’t they have access to adequate hygiene and nutrition, or even to a cooling system in the summer?

It is common knowledge nowadays that these deprivations serve to break a prisoner’s spirit and resolve. Yet as we also know, our grand and unflappable Payam cannot be broken. Anyone close to him knows him as an altogether reasonable, kind, humble, generous person, courageous and defiant in the face of injustice.

We the undersigned protest the illegal arrest and incarceration of this student activist. We consider the trial unfair and believe that his human and civil rights have been disregarded at all stages of the legal process, through the interrogation and investigation to the preliminary and appeals court proceedings.

Blindfolding, solitary confinement, and denial of access to a lawyer are violations of a defendant’s rights. Furthermore, the objectivity of the preliminary trial was compromised by the interference of a Ministry of Intelligence representative. By a flagrant act of interference [by non-judiciary authorities], his sentence was increased on appeal.

As friends, civil activists, and fellow students of Payam Shakiba, we object to his sentence and the unfair process to which he was subjected.

We ask for the immediate, unconditional release of Payam Shakiba so that he may defend himself in a fair trial before a jury. This self-evident legal and human right cannot be denied and ignored for perpetuity.

We ask human rights organizations and activists to carry out their duty, regardless of their political allegiances. The writing off of certain political prisoners is tantamount to abetting the suppression of their voices, and those guilty of it should be held accountable before history.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Teacher and former political prisoner Abdolreza Ghanbari was arrested Saturday, October 13th, and transferred to Ward 8 of Evin Prison to serve the remainder of a recently-resurrected prison term.

Amid re-reviews and permutations of his case under a changing penal code, Ghanbari has been pulled through the judicial wringer since his initial arrest in 2009, when he was detained in his workplace amid widespread “Ashura” demonstrations following the contentious Iranian election cycle of that year.

In February 2010, after two months of interrogation, Judge Salavati of Revolutionary Court Branch 15 sentenced him to death for “Moharebeh” [enmity against God],” through his alleged ties to the opposition group People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).

Four years later, in June 2013, Ghanbari’s death sentence was reversed in Supreme Court and commuted to 15 years’ imprisonment by Revolutionary Court Branch 1.

When Article 186 of the Islamic Penal Code was eliminated, Ghanbari requested and obtained a retrial, which resulted in the suspension of his sentence. He was released March 16, 2016 after having served more than six years in prison.

The return to normal life was relatively short-lived, as a close source explained to HRANA: “In September 2017, his prison sentence was reviewed again by Branch 28 of [Tehran’s] Revolutionary Court, presided by Judge Moghiseh, and increased from 10 years to 15 years in prison.”

Ghanbari’s new scheduled release date has yet to be confirmed by HRANA.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – After being interrogated twice for her social media publications, Iranian actress Parastoo Salehi says that Iranian security forces are barring her from making public appearances.

Salehi said that she was first interrogated on August 19 of this year, when she was summoned by the Iranian judiciary surveillance unit to explain her public commentary on Iran’s social and economic setbacks.

In a video she recently published online, Salehi said she was called again on October 2nd to the Ministry of Intelligence facility on Khajeh Abdollah Ansari street. “The public wasn’t to have knowledge of this meeting. But now I am being told again and again that I can’t appear in public for ‘security reasons.'”

Salehi questioned the intent behind Iranian authorities’ citation of “security reasons,” asking at the conclusion of her video, “How do I pose a security risk? Should I not act? Should I not speak? How can I get paid? How can I make a living?”

Salehi reported that she was being censured for using her public Instagram profile to decry issues such as embezzlement, the drop in value of the Iranian currency, political detainees, rape, child abuse, and the Caspian Sea agreement, a highly-contentious diplomatic agreement that was recently finalized.